Mistakes of Chavez's opposition in Venezuela: Personalistic political parties

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In Venezuela, opposition political parties are struggling against the dictatorial pretensions of Hugo Chavez, a former military who, among many other things, is criticized for the excessive personalistic character of his government.

But contradictorily, many of the organizations that oppose Hugo Chavez work with the same defect. Most of Venezuelan opposition political parties are headed by untouchable persons, who always occupy the same positions and that tend to neglect the grassroots views.

The opposition parties generally appear to be private companies controlled by a majority shareholder with full powers, where the others members only have opportunity to get secondary positions, unless they win the favor of the party's leader.

In these associations senior members derive legitimacy from themselves -because they are founders, won an important election sometime in the past, or any other pretext- which absolutely contradicts the functioning of democratic institutions.

So when we look at the main opposition parties in Venezuela, it is easy to see that each one has its own touch of autocracy: Manuel Rosales in Un Nuevo Tiempo, Julio Borges in Primero Justicia, Ramos Allup in Accion Democratica, Salas in Projecto Venezuela, and the same pattern in almost all others.

Unbelievably doing within their parties -in micro- something similar to the personalistic practices that Hugo Chavez applies in macro.

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- Most popular Venezuelan opposition parties in 2009

- Venezuela after February 2009: Extremism - rising tensions

- Focus Group: The opposition and Chavez's radicalism in 2009